Eclectic Psychological Healing
by I Took the One Less Travelled
Summary: How did Bruce get back into Gotham during The Dark Knight Rises, anyway? They never showed us how he got past all of the guards. Well, I figure that he got a lift from a madman in a box.


Bruce made a face and stared around the empty desert, contemplating the walk back to civilization. Oh, he could (and would) do it, but it wasn't going to be pleasant. Not to mention getting back into the States without any of Bane's cronies getting word to him that Bruce had escaped, and getting back into Gotham itself when the bridges and the tunnel were all being monitored by both Bane's people and the National Guard.

He was starting to wonder why anyone stayed on that goddamn island—it was just too easy for psychotic villains to trap people there. First the Joker, then Bane.

However, his dilemma was solved for him when a very familiar wheezing sound began echoing around him, and a breeze began to kick up out of nowhere. Bruce felt like smiling for the first time in ages at the sight of the materializing police box.

A gangly man wearing a tweed jacket and a bowtie popped out, a short, brunette girl just behind him. Huh. He was wearing different tweed—it was almost purple. And his vest had pocket chains on it.

"Brucie!" The Doctor greeted cheerfully, spinning out the doors of the box and giving Bruce a hug, which he endured good-naturedly.

"Doctor," Bruce greeted. "Where are Amy and Rory—did you leave them at home again? Amy hates it when you do that."

The Doctor closed down alarmingly, and Bruce could read between the lines. Something had happened to Amelia Pond, and she had taken a piece of her Raggedy Man with her. "They're gone," the Doctor whispered thickly, like there was something caught in his throat. Then the manic grin slid back onto his face, too quickly for it to be even remotely natural. "This is Clara Oswald. Clara, Bruce Wayne."

Something was different this time. Oh, the Doctor had been torn up after losing Rose, from what Bruce remembered. Martha leaving him had hit him badly, but only because he had been using Martha to stop up the holes that Rose had left behind, and then after what had happened with the Dalek Crucible, he had lost Rose _again_, and Donna in a way that was much crueler. Then he had disappeared for awhile, turned up when he was dying, turned into a man with a bowtie and shown up with a redhead, all visible sadness over Rose gone.

But this was the first time that this incarnation had lost someone so close to him, and it showed. Clara seemed to be mostly unaware of his pain—she must be new, then.

"Can I get a lift back to Gotham?" Bruce asked, shaking Clara's hand and waiting for her to make the _Bruce Wayne_ connection. Her mouth went wide just seconds later, and he tried to suppress a smirk. People were so predictable.

"In a bit, Brucie!" The Doctor said indulgently. "Gotta show you some stuff first."

Bruce closed his eyes in exasperation, and contented himself with the knowledge that, with the way that the console hummed as he entered the TARDIS, she wasn't about to land them in Gotham at the right time, anyway—she didn't seem to be ready to let him go. And it was a time machine—he could get back at any time, right?

He was regretting his lack of fight in the situation when he found himself thrown in a jail cell that rivalled Bane's prison for its sheer disgustingness, Clara looking bored next to him. Maybe she wasn't as new as he had thought, to be so used to being thrown in prison and sentenced to death on alien planets.

"We could wait for the Doctor," Bruce suggested, not really wanting to bloody his hands fighting his way out of the prison.

"Or," Clara shot him a quicksilver grin. "We could get out ourselves."

"Oh, fuck it," Bruce muttered. Bane had been so confident in his prison, and so arrogant, he hadn't even bothered to take his utility belt away from him, and he rummaged in it now to find a lock pick. It took him all of thirty seconds to jimmy the lock on the door open, slam the guard outside's head back against the prison doors, and set off with Clara on his heels.

"So, how does the billionaire playboy hermit learn how to pick a lock?" Clara asked him, eyebrow quirking.

"How does an average British girl from the twenty-first century end up in a jail cell on Lilabrae?" Bruce shot back.

Clara's lips quirked. "One day, I couldn't find the internet, so I called the best helpline out there. Next thing I knew, a madman with a box turned up that door, saved my life and whisked me off on an adventure. Quid pro quo?"

"I'm the Batman," he admitted, strangely secure in the knowledge that she'd never be able to tell on him.

"Huh," Clara said, tilting her head. "Didn't see that one coming. What were Amy and Rory like?"

"Has he told you?"

"No. But I saw... his personal timeline got invaded, so I threw myself into it after the guy that was trying to destroy his entire life. I scattered myself across his timeline, but I only sort of remember everything. I met Amy and Rory once, at the Dalek Asylum, but I only remember a little bit of it. Amy was red haired, right? And Scottish? She had a bit of a temper. Rory thought that he loved her more than she loved him. I remember that. I thought that he was a full of it. Amy called me Soufflé Girl. I called Rory Nina." Clara clutched her head and winced. "I can't—my head hurts. My name was Oswin Oswald. I saved them."

Bruce stared.

"It's complicated," Clara dismissed. The Doctor came barrelling into the hallway, and greeted them both enthusiastically, before waving around the fancy piece of technology that this planet wasn't supposed to have at this particular point in their timeline, before grabbing both Clara's and his hand and dragging them back to the TARDIS.

He let the Doctor talk him into four more trips before he put his foot down, but finally, the Doctor landed them back in Gotham, only three months after Bane had dumped him in that prison to begin with, and whisked away.

Laughing, Bruce looked at the spot where the blue box had used to be, and then he set off to find Selina, and hopefully John too.


End file.
